Pull the Trigger, Fire Willie

After losing the Division on the last day of the season to the Phillies, marking their 12^th loss in 17 contests, a clubhouse assistant asked Willie Randolph if he should pack his things up. Randolph tersely replied, “I don’t plan on going anywhere.” At the time he was right. Despite leading his team on the greatest collapse of all-time, he would be granted life even though everyone was calling for his head. Not much has changed since then, his team is still under performing, and those same sharks are looking to mount his head over the clubhouse door, but this time his team isn’t protecting him.

According to Jon Heyman of SI.com, Randolph could be relieved of his duties as soon as this weekend. “A Mets official indicated that nothing was expected to be decided today regarding Randolph’s status. But that doesn’t preclude something from happening later this weekend. Sources indicate his hold on the job is shaky, at best,” Heyman reports.

Early indicators point towards bench coach Jerry Manuel taking over the reigns at least in the interim.

This has been a long time coming. Last season’s meltdown had as much to do with Randolph’s failure to motivate his players as it did with lacking a strong presence in the rotation. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if Randolph wouldn’t have shrugged things off and allowed the public to seem him sweat a little. Instead he routinely laughed things off down the stretch, or said things like “[the losses] will only make the champagne taste sweeter.” This was a time when he should have been challenging his players, yet he waited until the last days of the season to change his post game quote from “they played better than us, they deserved it. We’ll turn it around tomorrow,” to, “We need to shape up and do better, we can’t afford to lose now.” His really cry was just too little too late, and many believe that his team had already quit on him by the time he was ready to take things seriously.

Somehow Randolph has remained oblivious to the urgency of his situation. He was well aware that his job was on the line when he entered the season, and as his team came out the gate limping all he had to say was , “It’s early, I’m not worried.” Over the last 52 weeks this club has went 85-88, when do you start worrying? It took reports of him possibly being fired this weekend for him to offer some insight, finally allowing reporters to see him squirm a little by stating that he’s having trouble sleeping at night.

“It’s a little tougher to sleep, and you just get up every morning ready to come out and try to do something to help your team win. It’s gets to the point where the last week was embarrassing. These guys don’t want to be embarrassed,” Randolph finally offered.

Maybe if he would have been a little more candid everyone wouldn’t be calling for his head.

Joe Torre got it. He may not have been the most brilliant manager, but he knew how to handle the media, and more importantly, how to protect his players from it. He didn’t need to punish guys, or raise his voice, yet he was an expert at motivating his players, and he always remained in control despite his passive nature. He respected his players and his players respected him. They may be two different clubs, but their cultures are very similar. New York is New York, no matter the borough.

Randolph may share Torre’s passive nature, but that’s about all they share. Joe would have taken a bullet for one his players, while Randolph basically let’s them take care of themselves. One of the major knocks on him all along is that he allows the veteran players to run the team, with a hands off approach. You’ll rarely see Randolph flood the field to dispute a call or get between an umpire and his players when there is brush-up on the field. He claims this is because he doesn’t want to show up an umpire, but wouldn’t the team be better off if he got tossed than say, David Wright?

The idea that this team is so talented that all Willie has to do is sit back and not screw things up is completely false. Randolph has his faults, and should be shown the door, but there’s plenty of blame to go around here. There was no excuse for last year’s club; they were a playoff team for 145 games. This year I’m not sure they ever were. David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Johan Santana are among the game’s most talent players, Ryan Church and John Maine are on their way there, but outside of the handful of bright spots this team is full aging stars entering the final chapter of their careers.

Their roster currently has an average age of 30.4, which qualifies them as the second oldest club along with the Phillies, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. The Phillies total is drastically skewed by the 45 year-old Jamie Moyer and the 40 year-old Tom Gordon. Their Friday night line-up had an average age of 29, while the Mets came in at 31. Is this a huge differential? On paper, no, but take Wright and Reyes out of the mix and that number jumps to 33, with everyone being 31 or older. On the other hand, with Jayson Werth back, the Phillies only have two starters that old: Pat Burrell (31) and Pedro Feliz (33).

Randolph can’t turn back the clock for Carlos Delgado, who is currently hitting .241/.323/.401. It’s also not his fault that Ryan Church, the catalyst for this club, hit the disabled list when the team was finally starting to make a run. He can’t do much about a staff that has a collective 8-13 record and 4.86 ERA from the 3-5 spots. At some point Omar Minaya is going to have to take a look at his roster and patch the holes if he wants to win a title, or at this rate, even a playoff berth.

The fans already fired this guy, they routinely boo him and the product on the field, and he has started to lash out at the city and organization with claims of rampant racisim. I don’t know if he’s right or wrong, I don’t have to walk in his shoes, but this is a relationship that is rapidly deteriorating at the seams, it’s time for everyone to clean the slate and start anew.

Just one question: if Randolph gets fired, what hat does he wear while coaching the National League All-Star team?